​In one respect, I’ve always found it very hard to have something fresh to say about Star Trek.
 
Having launched on television in the mid-1960’s, the Gene Roddenberry creation remains one of Science Fiction’s oldest and most fondly revered franchises.  Having gone through several incarnations, the property has told an incredible number of stories – big ones, short ones, complex ones, and even silly ones – and yet it continues trying to have something to say about the human condition after fifty-plus years.  One might just wish to address the topic by saying it’s a commodity that’s proven how to ‘live long and prosper,’ but its fans are owed more than just a few simple words, especially ones taken from the show’s greatest catch phrases.
 
Like so many, I mourned the death of Star Trek: Enterprise, and I say that honestly as one who didn’t watch all of the show’s run.  (In fact, I’ve only seen the first two seasons fully along with a smattering of episodes from seasons three and four.)  While it certainly wasn’t my favorite (far from it), I suspected – as did so many – that the end of Enterprise would spell the TV death of the Federation: warp engines would be taken offline, life support would failed, and each and every member of the crew would toss their uniforms into mothballs.  Fandom would be left waiting – and wanting – for several years, as anyone who knew what the Kobayashi Maru was could tell you Trek would inevitably be back.
 
It did return – theatrically, anyway – and fandom was split.
 
Gone were the familiar Kirk, Spock, and company.  In their place, Paramount presented an all-new roster.  With the help of Hollywood wunderkind JJ Abrams, Star Trek came back younger, fresher, and making vastly much less sense.  The morality plays which had cemented so much of the franchise’s foundation were instead replaced with lens flare, non-stop action sequences, and even an unlikely love story.  While it didn’t look like Trek, ‘Trek’ was still what the studio called it.
 
Even some of the property’s oldest supporters called foul.  Nicholas Meyer – the writer/director who helped bring elements of Star Trek II, III, IV, and VI to the silver screen – remarked in an interview: “And I think the biggest thing that shocked me about J.J. was Spock beating the shit out of somebody, and thinking, ‘No, that’s changing the shape of the bottle.’ And it may be very entertaining, and it may make a gazillion dollars, but that’s changing the shape of the bottle.”  Clearly, what he meant was that Star Trek was no longer stellar, much less ‘Star Trek.’
 
Perhaps “changing the shape of the bottle” is precisely what Paramount intended all along: the studio has dipped back into Trek’s water for yet another iteration, and that brings us to the premiere of Star Trek: Discovery.  Instead of putting this version of television where the very best hours of the property have always unfolded, CBS has opted to lure fans with the airing of Part 1 of a two-part telefilm and then requiring interested persons to subscribe to their internet streaming platform to watch its conclusion and its subsequent episodes.  In other words, they’re only giving you half the story – if not only one-thirteenth (it’s a thirteen-episode season) – while asking you to pay for it.
 
Like so many online have already said, I’m a bit disillusioned with the whole prospect of having to subscribe in order to continue enjoying Star Trek; and I say this with full knowledge that streaming has well been marked and marketed as the entertainment setting of tomorrow.  Logistically, you take a property as forward thinking as Trek has often been, and it makes perfect sense to pair that thematically up with a platform promising big things.  (Mind you, so far CBS’s AllAccess ponies up a vast array of two, three, and four-decades old sitcoms, but “it is what it is.”)  And, yes, I’ve read the “per episode breakdown” as well as the many diatribes written by folks who suggest subscribing then canceling it once the season has ended.  Were I all that impressed with Part 1, then I probably would’ve entertained something along those lines … but therein lies the risk.
 
Traditional television shows rarely hit one “outta the park” with pilot hours.  In some cases, networks have been known to ask producers to retool a first episode, occasionally even recasting major players as the chosen ensemble doesn’t seem to be working.  Frankly, there’s a lot of ground to be covered in most first hours as storytellers have only so much screen time to introduce the cast, the world, and its related circumstances.  Heck, even the original Star Trek endured the unimaginable for its day as NBC gave Roddenberry another shot to get the show right (their words, not mine) by suggesting he try again with a second pilot, one which met with their expectations.  To make matters worse, the peacock network’s suits even suggested that Roddenberry drop the Spock character completely, a sentiment he (thankfully) disagreed with and persisted.  Were viewers required to decide whether or not a show should last based entirely on a premiere, dare I suggest that a good many of TV’s best shows might not have survived a first season?
 
In order to perhaps entice the kind of response CBS desired, it’s pretty clear that “The Vulcan Hello” pulled out all of the stops, dishing out the kind of epic, cinematic feel one rarely sees on the small screen.  The audience was treated to some solid, expansive cinematography, much of which was obviously enhanced with the latest and greatest CGI (computer-generated imagery) along with a pulse-pounding pace necessary to reel viewers in to the conflict, but – despite all of the posturing – very little of “Hello” made much narrative sense.

​See, there’s these Klingons, and they don’t look like Klingons that we know and love … so are they really Klingon?  Are they some kind of evil offshoot, an odd question given the fact that Klingons of this era were already established as villainous (to a degree)?  And what’s with that Science Officer who keeps wanting to not give a definitive answer?  And why is everyone wearing what looks to be Southwest Airlines inflight service uniforms?  Wait: you couldn’t beam your First Officer into the meteor field, but you could safely beam her out?!
 
The risk any storyteller takes in trying to divulge too much too fast is that all of the exposition ends up feeling more than a bit clunky.  Granted, the script from Bryan Fuller (an admitted die-hard Trekkie who vacated the project not long after it began) and Alex Kurtzman (an admitted hater of all Things traditionally considered Star Trek) covers a lot of ground with relative ease thanks to David Semel’s direction (which amounted to a lot of quick, flashy dialogue and heavily tilted camera angles); but Discovery feels like something joined “in progress” wherein the onscreen participants clearly know where it’s all heading and they’re trying very hard to keep those reveals secret.
 
There’s almost an insistency inherent with the roughly sixty minutes that implies, “Just go with it, and you’ll like where we take you,” or maybe it’s more simply stated as “Trust us.”  The story – what little there is – keeps spooling whether you understood what just happened or not.  “Don’t ask about the Klingons.  Don’t ask what we’re doing with their dead.”  All the while, the cast and crew are hoping you don’t ask how it was their communicators couldn’t work in that storm blowing in throughout the episode’s opening sequence while expecting you to unquestionably accept that the ship’s navigator was simply watching (from space!) the captain and her first officer walking about a planet’s surface!
 
“See what we did there?  Didn’t it look nice?”
 
Uh … why did the captain know what she was doing and her first officer didn’t?  With that storm bearing down on them, how could she NOT notice they were walking in a circle?
 
“Don’t look over there, but look over here!”
 
Well … maybe … but I still didn’t believe it.
 
See, Discovery had no sense of humanity.  In its place, the showrunners have substituted conflict; and I suspect that they’re hoping conflict will serve as a reasonable substitute.  It might – it certainly worked for Syfy’s retooling of the classic Battlestar Galactica on their network, but Syfy didn’t ask viewers to pay extra in order to explore theirs.  (Yes, you were already paying for cable, but you get my drift.)
 
All of this said, I could still make an argument that Discovery will likely improve.
 
As I mentioned above, first episodes have an unforgiving amount of terrain to cover, and many of my qualms might very well have been cleared up in Episode 2 (for all I know).  Plus, the show has a terrifically gifted cast, and I suspect they’re working hard behind-the-scenes to keep each other and their writers on their toes.  Lastly, I noticed in the credits that Akiva Goldsman is part of the writing and production staff; and there are few creative folks working in the industry today who can do with a show what Goldsman can.  (See Fox TV’s Fringe for an indication, if you’re really interested.)
 
So even though it’s first hour didn’t impress me, I’m thrilled that Star Trek is back.  Let’s just hope that the suits at Paramount can finally figure out what it’s supposed to be.

It often bears repeating that I – like so many others who choose to talk about films online – was raised in a vastly different era than what viewers enjoy today: namely, when I was a sprite, I didn’t have a billion TV channels to choose from.  Home videotaping was still a few years off.  If you wanted to watch a certain program, then you had to make time while it was being broadcast!  You couldn’t download or stream it after-the-fact, much less go online to uncover what everyone and your mother’s uncle thought about it.  Those technologies didn’t exist, and – as a consequence – I had to make do with what was available.

Kids today can’t begin to conceive of television offering a mere half-dozen channels (at worst) or maybe even a dozen (at best).  Depending upon what the weather was like, you might be able to get one or two more via antennae, but those smaller markets oft times played silly English-dubbed imports or seemingly insane movies purchased from some comprehensive syndication library.  For the record, it’s these flicks exactly that the seminal Mystery Science Theatre 3000 made its mark by lampooning, and I’ve no doubt that Cyborg 2087 is exactly the kind of thing I would’ve been subjected to as a youngling growing up in rural Illinois.

You’ll pardon me for saying that I think I’m a better person because of it.
​

(NOTE: The following review will contain minor spoilers necessary solely for the discussion of plot and/or characters.  If you’re the type of reader who prefers a review entirely spoiler-free, then I’d encourage you to skip down to my last few paragraphs for my final assessment.  If, however, you’re accepting of a few modest hints at ‘things to come,’ then read on …)

From the product packaging:
“In the year 2087, where freedom of thought is illegal and the minds of the world’s population are controlled by governments, a small group of rebels send a cyborg, Garth A7 (Michael Rennie), back to the year 1966 to prevent a scientist from making a breakthrough that will lead to the nightmarish future.  The time traveler soon discovers that he’s not alone; the opposition has sent a group of government tracer agents to prevent him from carrying out his mission …”
​

If the plot from Cyborg 2087 sounds remotely familiar, then I’d caution you this: rather than conclude James Cameron lifted it fully and transplanted into his seminal The Terminator (1984), a simple viewing of director Franklin Adreon’s earlier attempt will almost immediately convince you otherwise.  There’s only a passing similarity in the concept: what Cameron achieves in substance, Adreon and his cast and crew can’t really begin to so much as shake a stick at.  Why not?  Well, probably because they couldn’t afford it.

Cyborg is the ultimate in low, low, low budget filmmaking.  It’s the kind of thing conceived quickly and – quite probably – shot just as swiftly.  What plot there is – Garth has to locate the scientist enlisting the ‘coerced’ cooperation of Dr. Sharon Mason (the lovely Karen Steele) – moves at a snail’s pace, largely owed to the fact that Adreon padded his “action” sequences with far too much of the mundane: Rennie marching across the screen, his adversaries running on foot from location to location, teenagers dancing in the background while cybernetic surgery is taking place in the next room, etc.  At about the time the viewer begins to wonder if there is any method to the madness, the director necessarily tightens up the reins with some exposition … but only so much that’ll keep his picture on track.

And – unquestionably – Cyborg is an odd duck of production.  While there’s clearly some talent up there on the screen (besides Rennie and Steele, the film features such reliable veterans as Wendell Corey and Forbidden Planet’s Warren Stevens in key roles), Adreon can’t quite seem to keep things moving at an even pace.  Arthur C. Pierce’s script takes one science fiction concept after another, and – rather than thoughtfully develop mind control, government oppression, and time travel paradox for the audience – Pierce mashes them up against one another in order to achieve a kind of intelligent ‘posture’ void of any real movement.

But … here’s the dirty little secret: I think someone tried to do just a bit more with the flick than you might think.
​

For example, Cyborg opens with an obvious matte painting of what Garth’s future city looks like: it’s a highly-stylized collection of domes and towers set in a brilliant skyline.  What we learn, of course, as the story develops is that these people are not existing in utopia; rather, they’re going about their lives almost robotically due to Dr. Sigmund Marx’s invention from 1966.  However, when Garth arrives in the past, he turns up in what appears to be the wild, wild west: an almost gutted-out ghost town awaits the traveler – perhaps a symbolic representation exactly of how this half-robot-half-man perceives the future.  Audiences quickly learn (through character discussion) that this town is just that – an old west haunt from about 100 years previous existing outside of the present-day Desert City – but the script keeps taking us back here.

Why would the director and/or screenwriter put up three distinctly different eras – 2087, 1966, and (approximately) 1866 – unless they were trying to say something about the unforgiving passage of time?  Were Adreon and Pierce commenting on how one civilization must fall in order for progress to be achieved while Garth is intent on unraveling that future?   Were they trying to remind audiences to not be so attached to the present because – as the western town demonstrates – it’ll all fall into decrepitude inevitably anyway?  Was this escapist SciFi fare covertly actually trying to remind Tom, Dick, and Harry not to get too interested in this thing called “technology” because it was likely to spell their collective doom?

The truth is that we’ll likely never know what anyone involved with the picture wanted to say (if anything) as filmmaker Chris Alexander on his commentary track reminds us that those folks involved with Cyborg have long since passed into the beyond.  Still, what would they tell us if they could about their machinations?  Was it all meant to be little more than an interesting side trip in the annals of forgotten cinema … or did they mean for this to be something much, much darker?

Art is what you make of it, and I don’t think there was much artistic intent behind Cyborg 2087.  Still, it makes for some interesting debate.
​

Cyborg 2087 was produced by Harold Goldman Associates and United Pictures.  DVD distribution for this release is being handled by the reliable Kino Lorber.  As for the technical specifications?  The packaging boasts that the film was re-mastered in HD, and it does look and sound very good.  (There are a few sequences heavy with grain, but there’s nothing that ultimately distracts from the viewing experience.)  As for the special features?  As mentioned above, there is a commentary track, and – in some ways – it’s at times almost as befuddling as the film itself: Alexander largely gives his impressions on performances and the genre, carefully sprinkling some trivia here and there for those listening closely.  Still, kudos for his effort as Cyborg is definitely an obscure title, making research into its production practically impossible.

(Mildly) Recommended.

Look, no one’s going to claim that the world is a better place for such cinema schlock as Cyborg 2087 being in it.  It doesn’t offer any award-winning performances.  It certainly doesn’t offer a particularly riveting narrative.  And – in all frankness – you’ll quite possibly find yourself laughing more at the film’s attempt to present itself seriously while having little to no budget to speak of.  However, what Cyborg 2087 does have is a heart and a soul common to so many lesser pictures of its era: it tries to be something more than the sum of its parts, but the conventions of cheaply made flicks shot for nothing more than product-to-sell will always hold it back.  It gives one an interesting portrait of what moviemaking was like for the oft-overlooking 1960’s, and – if you watch closely – you might even see shades of how Science Fiction was making its grand transition from little ideas to the big, meaty ones in Hollywood.

​In the interests of fairness, I’m pleased to disclose that the fine folks at Kino Lorber / Kino Classics provided me with a Blu-ray of Cyborg 2087 by request for the expressed purposes of completing this review; and their contribution to me in no way, shape, or form influenced my opinion of it.

It’s the summer of 1986, and I was a summer camp counselor somewhere in rural Wisconsin.  On a day before the kids showed up, I travelled into town looking for something to pass the time.  The local twin theatres had SpaceCamp showing opposite Tom Cruise’s Tom Gun.  As I had already seen Maverick’s stunning antics, I decided to give the Kate Capshaw feature a go … and I honestly can say I don’t much remember it from thirty years ago.  I do recall thinking at the time that all of it was more than a bit juvenile, but I’d never the film a second thought until I noticed it recently coming back into the home video release schedule.  I decided to give it another try, and I’m glad I did.

(NOTE: The following review will contain minor spoilers necessary solely for the discussion of plot and/or characters.  If you’re the type of reader who prefers a review entirely spoiler-free, then I’d encourage you to skip down to the last few paragraphs for my final assessment.  If, however, you’re accepting of a few modest hints at ‘things to come,’ then read on …)

​From the product packaging:
“Kathryn, Tish, Max, Rudy, and Kevin are a group of bright but incorrigible high school students spending their summer at the NASA SpaceCamp.  But when a frightening miscommunication occurs during a space shuttle training mission, the teens and their astronaut instructor are accidentally launched into orbit.  Can this young team of unlikely heroes work together to survive the outer-space adventure of a lifetime?”

For starters, SPACECAMP is an ensemble piece, and that’s no easy task when you’re trafficking in the realm of Science Fiction much less youth casts.

Essentially, I’ve always found that space fantasies work better at captivating audiences when the tale has a central character arc – not several small arcs as tends to happen with ensemble stories – and Camp’s script from W.W. Wicket and Casey T. Mitchell opens almost with the promise of this being Andie Bergstrom’s journey (played by the stunning Kate Capshaw).  Though she’s clearly billed and built as the lead, Camp becomes more of a group project once the real ‘camp’ begins, and this opens the door for a wealth of young talent just emerging on the Hollywood scene: Tate Donovan, Lea Thompson, Kelly Preston, Larry B. Scott, and Leaf (aka Joaquin) Phoenix.

Therein lies the central problem I had with so much of the film: director Harry Winer does what he can to balance out all that unfolds here, doling out scenes with an almost formulaic distribution from one newcomer to the next.  Consequently, none of these “people” feel as authentic as might happen if the script had instead focused on one or two principles instead of trying to give everyone equal time: Scott and the vivacious Preston end up having the least narrative definition, but that isn’t saying much as all of the principles featured here end up having little more than a single ‘note’ to the overall composition.  In fact, most of the introductions and the time spent on Earth ends up feeling a bit jumbled and even truncated: as pupils, they’re not seen receiving much education (there’s a single montage) before they’re suited up and accidentally blown into orbit, definitely highlighting that this is all fantasy and very, very little reality.

Still, I’d be remiss if I didn’t admit that Camp truly lifts off once its ensemble is in the heavens (a metaphor this fanboy welcomes using giving the trifecta of such lovelies as Capshaw, Thompson and Preston).  Once in orbit, this Winer project finds its pulse while putting these space sailors through their real-world schooling.  Much like the crew of original USS Enterprise, each of them has a purpose along with a lesson to learn, and success is inevitably predicated on their putting aside differences and coming together to achieve something bigger as a group than they ever could on their own.  With their figurative baggage left behind on Earth, conflicts still come to a head in space, where Capshaw and her crew shine the way all stars do.

Sadly, Camp is a film that’s almost been forgotten in film history through no fault of its own.

Only a few months before its theatrical release, America’s National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) endured one of its greatest tragedies when the space shuttle Challenger exploded only seconds after liftoff on January 28, 1986.  Camp opened in that May, and I suspect audiences had grown more than a bit cynical of the entire space shuttle program, having watched their heroes killed and their deaths analyzed ad nauseum on the evening news for weeks.  Gone from our collective history were the sentiments of success and achievement that had fueled so much of space exploration; and yet here – in its place – a studio was distributing a film about how a ‘simple mistake’ gave non-astronauts a chance to have the adventure of a lifetime.  The Challenger disaster reminded a generation of how the business of outer space was dangerous.

Camp’s box office returns were understandably poor, none of it owed to anyone involved with the feature much less the studio.  Instead of giving the film a chance, folks stayed away from the picture.

In the interviews with Ms. Thompson and Mr. Winer featured on this disc, both figures touch on how they’ve been approached by fans in the years since; and both recount how – also much like the original Star Trek – the vision of NASA portrayed in the film inspired them to pursue careers in science that would ultimately lead to employment with the agency or its various manufacturers.  In my estimation, there’s no greater compliment paid to art than seeing it stir others into exploring their own personal horizons; and I’d argue that this disc is worth the spin for no other reason than that.  While its story is predictable, its message of how a team rises to the occasion against all obstacles remains one that is truly timeless.
​

SPACECAMP (1986) was produced by ABC Motion Pictures.  DVD distribution for this release is being handled by the reliable Kino Lorber.  As for the technical specifications?  Unless I miss my guess (I’ve been wrong before), this particular release hasn’t been fully remastered (perhaps it’s been cleaned up a bit) as I thought the first thirty minutes or so had an inordinate amount of grain to it; sound quality is very good.  As for the special features?  Kino Lorber has ponied up the original theatrical trailer along with two interviews: Lea Thompson (10 min.) and director Harry Winer (18 min.).  For what it’s worth, the Thompson interview is nice – she recalls a few interesting tidbits about the filming process and special effects challenges but otherwise it’s a lot of “fluff” – but Winer does a much better job, putting the film and its relative history up for some creative examination.  It’s a good package, especially considering the fact that the feature is one of those that came and went from theatres pretty fast.

​RECOMMENDED.

​So long as you can make it through the film’s first forty-five minutes or so, SpaceCamp actually isn’t half bad.  It’s pure escapism, but its second half is handled much better than the first: character introductions are a bit saccharin, giving the story the feel more of a telefilm than a big budget silver screen production.  It doesn’t help the ensemble that all of its characters are fairly thinly drawn, but – come the big finish – the flick is a forgivable 107 minutes with as good looking a bunch of budding astronauts as you’re ever liable to find.  (Need I remind you: Capshaw, Thompson, and Preston!  They’re heavenly bodies, each and every one!)

​In the interests of fairness, I’m pleased to disclose that the fine folks at Kino Lorber / Kino Classics provided me with a Blu-ray of SPACECAMP by request for the expressed purposes of completing this review; and their contribution to me in no way, shape, or form influenced my opinion of it.

Like so many viewers of my generation, I’ve always struggled with enjoying silent films.

​This isn’t because I can’t find silent films of merit: I can, but it’s just that having grown up (and old) with the vastly improved delivery of sound makes going back to a markedly different format occasionally difficult.  For example, the narrative pacing of silent pictures tends to almost begrudgingly allow for the slowest readers on Earth to take in every possible nuance from card inserts (those clips of written speech), and I find myself wishing from time to time for all of it to speed up.  While the visuals and performances are enough to maintain my interest, I almost wish there were a way to dub in a vocal track for those of us with ‘challenged’ attention spans (blasphemous, I know), but – as they say – it is what it is.

However, I do a fair amount of research in the realm of Science Fiction and Fantasy, and when a specific title keeps popping up in my reading I almost always add that feature to my ‘must see’ list; and 1925’s THE LOST WORLD has been near the top of said list for some time.  It’s a motion picture that has often been linked with the 1933 version of KING KONG for its dynamic use of stop motion animation in storytelling, demonstrating what was visually possible in cinema’s earlier days.  The chief reason I’d held off in exploring any available version of the film was that – from what I’d read – there were just no good ‘cuts’ out there: all known prints were destroyed only a few short years after its release, and THE LOST WORLD in its original form was essentially lost to history.

Lo and behold, Flicker Alley – with a host of other contributors – have achieved what was once unimaginable: they scoured collections around the world, and – having located bits and pieces of footage remaining – they’ve assembled as close as we’re likely ever to see a Blu-ray edition of WORLD for today’s discriminating home video audiences.  Furthermore, they’ve given their version a 2K restoration along with an entirely new score, making the disc a ‘must’ for both aficionados of silent pictures and vintage special effects.

So does THE LOST WORLD measure up to its reputation?

For those unaware, WORLD is based on the novel by famed Sherlock Holmes literary creator Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and tells the story of Professor Challenger’s quest to prove his claim that dinosaurs still walk the Earth on a secret plateau in South America.  Scorned by London’s science foundations, Challenger (played by Wallace Beery) gathers a crew of interested explorers – including struggling journalist Ed Malone (Lloyd Hughes) – and sails around the world in search of proof.  Eventually, they reach their famed destination, only to find themselves caught up in a race against time as a volcanic eruption threatens the survival of man and beast!
​

​Essentially, the Marion Fairfax script predates today’s big tent-pole blockbusters by nearly a century as the populist tale incorporates everything you’d want in a summer spectacular: herculean special effects, bold adventurers, and even a love triangle all mix together vividly thanks to Harry O. Hoyt’s direction.  This isn’t to say that all of the characters are well drawn and their motivations spelled out perfectly – in fact, the love triangle practically comes out of nowhere, and the thinness of the involved characters might produce one or two unintended laughs – but it’s clear to see how WORLD employed a solid formula to achieve a balanced, easy-to-swallow concoction.  In fact, it’s a recipe audiences saw a few short years later in the aforementioned KONG as well as Steven Spielberg’s JURASSIC PARK and (more so) THE LOST WORLD: JURASSIC PARK.

All of that said, I could still make an argument for this particular WORLD being more of an acquired taste.  The pacing of the first half is a bit slow (there’s an understandable amount of backstory involved in establishing the handful of characters, some of which ends up being a bit superfluous in retrospect), and not every artistic decision Hoyt employs is clear.  WORLD's various segments are kinda/sorta set apart via tinting, and – despite my watching closely – I’m not entirely certain what if anything the director was trying to say about a particular sequence by “coloring” it with a certain color; while some viewers may find that interesting, I honestly thought it was more distracting than it needed to be, and at one point I wished everything had simply been left in black’n’white.

To their credit, Flicker Alley and its partners have loaded this release with a wealth of special features.  The packaging includes a written essay exploring the film’s restoration challenges; and the disc itself includes a few related short films, image galleries, and an audio commentary by film historian Nicolas Ciccione: it’s a good track, though I found it a bit light on trivia specific to WORLD as Ciccione spends an inordinate amount of time comparing the picture to the original novel as well as exploring ideas unfilmed from the shooting script, but he does draw useful attention to some gaps still existing in the narrative due the film’s disappearance and reemergence practically a century later.  All-in-all, it’s an impressive package, one I’ve spent several hours with already and will probably explore a bit more.

In the interests of fairness, I’m pleased to disclose that the fine folks at Flicker Alley provided me with a Blu-ray of THE LOST WORLD by request for the expressed purposes of completing this review; and their contribution to me in no way, shape, or form influenced my opinion of it.